I think it’s important to differentiate between “a good life” and “a Good Life.” Maybe I’m making too much of this; it may be obvious to anyone or even considered a trivial difference but I think the difference is significant. The way I think about it, living The Good Life would mean living a good life, but not necessarily the other way around. You could have a good life, but it would not have to include trying to make the world a better place (which I think is part of The Good Life).
Neither one specifically refers to bearing up under adversity, or overcoming significant challenges. While certainly meritorious, either version of a good life to me doesn’t carry much of a connotation of achieving some kind of victory against odds or challenges; it’s more of a life lived well and what that means. Again, I am not saying either a good life or a Good Life are in any way superior to a life lived well against physical, mental or emotional challenges or handicaps (in fact, it may even be the other way around); they’re just different perspectives.
A good life is to me fairly self-explanatory. It connotes a rich life, surrounded by loving, nurturing relationships and characterized by having a positive impact on others. It’s filled with charity, love maybe contentment and not anger, hatefulness, spite or envy; it includes being comfortable or even happy in whatever circumstances one finds oneself. It also carries a sense of productivity and accomplishment similar to joy in work.
A Good Life is all of that, I think, but also has a sense of setting a high bar and striving towards that. In this sense it mirrors Plato’s Forms, where there is an “ideal” or perfect version of something that exists outside our realm of awareness, but that all other versions of that thing are compared or measured against. So there is an ideal tree in this otherworldly realm that exemplifies “tree-ness” so perfectly it gives us a template or way to identify all trees in our realm. The same for mundane things like a chair, or horse, but also philosophical concepts, including an ideal life.
All three of the early Greek philosophers (Socrates, Plato and Aristotle) had their versions of The Good Life; I’m not going to try to explain each or how they differed but I think it’s an important enough concept (at least to them) that they each developed and refined their own view. And since they were, well, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, philosophers ever since then have devoted lots of ink and brain power to the subject. Socrates opinion of the unexamined life being not worth living gives us a sense of how important being (or training yourself to be) introspective is. Introspection, or some form of personal (hopefully non-judgmental) self-evaluation gives the opportunity to see where we can make improvements in our own personalities and, over time, become the best we can be.
Something to think about.
